We all love Star Wars. Well, most of us anyway. If you're like me, you grew up watching Han and Chewie running down the corridor chasing Stormtroopers and getting into firefights. Did you know, that a good majority of the blasters and blaster rifles from the films are actually old military surplus weapons?

True story. This is just a small bit of the arsenal contained within the saga and the history of the REAL variants. Yes, it's Guns AND Star Wars. What else would you expect from a "Gun Geek"?

Han Solos blaster is just a modified Mauser C96. A.K.A. a "BroomHandle Mauser"

The Mauser C96 (Construktion 96) is a semi-automatic pistol that was originally produced by German arms manufacturer Mauser from 1896 to 1937. Unlicensed copies of the gun were also manufactured in Spain and China in the first half of the 20th century.The distinctive characteristics of the C96 are the integral box magazine in front of the trigger, the long barrel, the wooden shoulder stockwhich can double as a holster or carrying case and a grip shaped like the handle of a broom. The grip earned the gun the nickname "Broomhandle" in the English-speaking world because of its round wooden handle, and in China the C96 was nicknamed the "box cannon" (Chinese: 盒子炮; pinyin: hézipào) because of its rectangular internal magazine and the fact it could be holstered in its wooden box-like detachable stock.With its long barrel and high-velocity cartridge, the Mauser C96 had superior range and better penetration than most other pistols; the7.63×25mm Mauser cartridge was the highest velocity commercially manufactured pistol cartridge until the advent of the .357 Magnumcartridge in 1935.Mauser manufactured approximately 1 million C96 pistols, while the number produced in Spain and China was large but unknown due to the loss, non-existence or poor preservation of production records from those countries. WIKI

The Storm Trooper Blaster is a modified "Sterling Machine Gun"

We have all made jokes that the Storm Troopers couldn't hit the broadside of a barn. But the REAL weapon that the blasters are modified from were actually pretty cool.

The Sterling submachine gun is a Britishsubmachine gun. It was trialled with the British Army in 1944–1945 as a replacement for theSten, but it did not start to replace it until 1953. It remained in use until 1994, when it was phased out with the introduction of the L85A1 assault rifle

In 1944, the British General Staff issued a specification for a new submachine gun. It stated that the weapon should weigh no more than six pounds (2.7 kg), should fire 9×19mm Parabellum ammunition, have a rate of fire of no more than 500 rounds per minute and be sufficiently accurate to allow five consecutive shots (fired in semi-automatic mode) to be placed inside a one-foot-square target at a distance of 100 yd (91 m). WIKI

The Sand Trooper's Rifle- I always wondered how bad it would suck to walk around on Tattooine in armor carrying this beast, which is actually just a modified German MG-42. Then I was assigned to CAX at USMC 29 Palms. I found out. Minus the Storm Trooper armor.

The MG 42 (shortened from German: Maschinengewehr 42, or "machine gun 42") is a 7.92×57mm Mausergeneral purpose machine gun designed in Nazi Germany and used extensively by the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS during the second half of World War II. Intended to replace the more expensive and time-consuming to manufacture frontline MG 34, they ended up produced in tandem until the end of the war.The MG 42 has a proven record of reliability, durability, simplicity, and ease of operation, but is most notable for its ability to produce a high volume of suppressive fire. The MG 42 had one of the highest average cyclic rate of any single-barreled man-portable machine gun: between 1,200 and 1,500 rpm, which results in a distinctive muzzle report.The MG 42's lineage continued past Nazi Germany's defeat, forming the basis for the nearly identical NATO round chambered MG1 (MG 42/59), which subsequently evolved into the MG1A3, then the Bundeswehr's MG 3. It also spawned the SwissMG 51, Zastava M53, SIG MG 710-3, Austrian MG 74, and the Spanish 5.56mmAmelilight machine gun, and lent many design elements to the American M60 andBelgianMAG. The MG 42 was adopted by a number of armed organizations after the war, and was both copied and built under licence.WIKI

The Jawa Blaster- This one I'm really excited to talk about, for the simple fact that I OWN the real thing! This is a chopped down and modified 303 Lee Enfield.

Pictured above is my ACTUAL 303 Enfield mk 4. One of the best Battle Rifles ever made. British Marksman (snipers) still use the caliber today.

The Lee–Enfieldbolt-action, magazine-fed, repeating rifle was the main firearm used by the military forces of the British Empire and Commonwealth during the first half of the 20th century. It was the British Army's standard rifle from its official adoption in 1895 until 1957.A redesign of the Lee–Metford (adopted by the British Army in 1888), the Lee–Enfield superseded the earlier Martini–Henry, Martini–Enfield, and Lee–Metford rifles. It featured a ten-round box magazine which was loaded with the .303 Britishcartridge manually from the top, either one round at a time or by means of five-round chargers. The Lee–Enfield was the standard issue weapon to rifle companies of the British Army and other Commonwealth nations in both the First and Second World Wars (these Commonwealth nations included Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa, among others). Although officially replaced in the UK with the L1A1 SLR in 1957, it remained in widespread British service until the early/mid-1960s and the 7.62 mm L42 sniper variant remained in service until the 1990s. As a standard-issue infantry rifle, it is still found in service in the armed forces of some Commonwealth nations, notably with the Bangladesh Police, which makes it the longest-serving military bolt-action rifle still in official service. The Canadian Forces' Rangers Arctic reserve unit still used Enfield No.4 rifles as of 2012, with plans announced to replace the weapons sometime in 2014 or 2015. Total production of all Lee–Enfields is estimated at over 17 million rifles.The Lee–Enfield takes its name from the designer of the rifle's bolt system--James Paris Lee—and the factory in which it was designed—the Royal Small Arms Factory in Enfield. In Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Southern Africa and India the rifle became known simply as the "three-oh-three".WIKI

I would love to tell you what Chewbaccas Bowcaster was made from but I haven't been able to figure it out. Sorry. I will be doing a few videos in the future where we actually go out and shoot some of these Bad Boys! Be sure to subscribe to the Youtube Channel and give us a LIKE on Facebook!